How to Stop Conference Call Echo

Have you experienced echo and call quality issues on any of your conference calls? Here are a few things that may be causing the problem.

Speakerphones: Try muting the speaker phone if no one is talking. When speaking, get close to the speakerphone so everyone can hear what your are trying to say. Only have one phone in the room on the call at a time. Lower the volume of the speakerphone as much as you can. Get everyone to in the room to move as close to speaker phone as possible for best results.

Use a headset: It’s best a good quality wired headset from a landline. Avoid small empty rooms that have a tendency to have an echo even when you’re not on a call.

Use a landline: Mobile phone quality isn’t always the best. For the best results use a good old fashioned landline.

Mute all lines: Most conferencing services have a “mute all” function. Use this while presenting to help reduce background noise from other callers.

Use the support operator: An operator will join the call during your conference. They will help to isolate the echo problem and help you resolve the issue. This is usually done by pressing a key command on most conferencing services. Determining the source of call quality issues is best done during a call. It’s more difficult for technical support to source the issue after the call.

Use a good quality conferencing provider: Not all conferencing services are the same. If you’ve tried all the above and you’re still having the issues. Contact your provider and let them know. They should work with you to help resolve the issue if they value your business.

We have a group of about 15 people. When we meet, usually two or three people call in. So they can be heard, we have speakers connected to our computer, and a remote microphone so they can be heard.

When a person on the line speaks, their voice is projected in the speakers.
The sound of their voice then goes into the microphone
The microphone then transmits that sound back through the speakers creating an echo.

Is the only way to solve this to mute the mic whenever someone is speaking? This makes conversation difficult. Are there any other solutions?

What you have is more of an audio feedback or a reverberation problem.

Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer. It may take some trial and error on your behalf to see what works best.

Here are some suggestions to start.

1.) If possible try separating your speakers and microphone as much as possible.

2.) Try using a different microphone, something like a gooseneck. Everyone would have to move closer to the microphone when speaking. Some microphones pick-up more ambient noise than others. The size of your room can also make a difference with feedback.

3.) Use a quality conferencing phone instead of using computer and speakers. Conference phones are more designed for this type of thing and should help the issue. Polycom makes some nice phones. See here